Markus Goldstein, World Bank senior economist for the Africa Region, discusses the importance of a new initiative designed to effectively address the underlying causes of gender inequality in Africa.Read More »

This article examines the relationship
between female schooling and two behaviors, cumulative
fertility and contraceptive use, in fourteen Sub-Saharan
African countries... Show More + where Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
have been conducted since the mid-1980s. Average levels of
schooling among women of reproductive age are very low, from
less than two years to six. Controlling for background
variables, the last years of female primary schooling have a
negative relation with fertility in about half the
countries, while secondary schooling is associated with
substantially lower fertility in all countries. Female
schooling has a positive relationship with contraceptive use
at all levels. Among ever-married women, husband's
schooling exerts a smaller effect than doe's female
schooling on contraceptive use and, in almost all cases, on
fertility. Although the results suggest commonalities among
these Sub-Saharan countries, they also reveal intriguing
international differences in the impact of female schooling,
which might reflect differences in the quality of schooling,
labor markets, and family planning programs, among others. Show Less -

The ability to test for discrimination
in the allocation of goods between boys and girls is
hampered by a lack of data on intrahousehold distribution.
The analysis presented... Show More + here allows inferences about
intrahousehold allocation to be made from household-level
expenditure data. For a given level of income, families with
children will spend less on adult goods in order to purchase
children's goods. If household purchasing favors boys
over girls, smaller expenditures on adult goods would be
made by families with boys as compared with those with
girls. A method for determining "adult" goods is
described, and the procedure for detecting gender bias is
applied to data from Cote d'Ivoire and Thailand. The
data show no evidence of discrimination between boys and
girls in Cote d'Ivoire, and a small and statistically
insignificant bias in favor of boys in Thailand. Show Less -